Crimsonspotted Rainbowfish, Melanotaenia duboulayi Did you know are the loudest in the world (Castelnau, 1878) males noted to be in breeding colours. and there are more than 200 species in Australia?

Bush Curlew, Burhinus grallarius, seen and heard in various It is thought that the sound produced by some communal urban areas around the Redlands. species can act as a defence against predatory birds and some are even loud enough (120 decibels) to be painful to Brown Goshawk, Accipiter fasciatus over Ney Road Capalaba. the human ear. Cicadas also often sing in chorus, which makes it more difficult for a predator to locate an individual.

Cicadas are so conspicuous that many of their common names were initially given to them by children. As a result cicadas probably have the most colourful common names in Mankind is looking for food not just on this planet but on others. the world. Some of these include: Black Prince, Perhaps the time has now come to put that process into reverse. Psaltoda plaga, Double Drummer, Floury Baker, and the Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the Green Grocer or Yellow Monday, australasiae. population, maybe we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment. Only male cicadas sing. They do this in an attempt to find a mate. Different species have different songs to attract only Sir David Attenborough their own kind. Adult cicadas have short lives, usually only a few weeks. Most of their lives are spent as nymphs underground. For some species this can be up to several The problem with hard surfaces years. Cicadas feed only on plant sap using their piercing, sucking mouthparts. Cicadas feed on a huge range of There is approximately an 80% decline in aquatic taxa when plants, including eucalypts and grasses. Birds, bats, spiders, there is a 0.5 to 2% increase in the impervious cover within the wasps, ants, mantids and tree crickets all prey on cicadas. landscape? Impervious landscapes are typically found in urban https://australianmuseum.net.au/cicadas-superfamily-cicadoidea areas due to roads, concrete and general urbanisation.

Great Walks Eprapah Creek supports a What is flowering number of walking trails. These tracks will take you Cadaghi, Corymbia torelliana, A large tree with rough bark on through woodland and the lower part of the trunk and smooth greyish-green bark on the wetlands and many upper part of the trunk. The leaves are relatively large, broad, species great and small and roughly hairy (unlike most other eucalypts). Its leaves are will be seen. Adding further often affected by a sooty mould which produces distinctive black trails to the current track system will only damage the values sooty deposits on the leaf blades. Its white flowers are borne in that people can currently enjoy. Save Eprapah Creek. large clusters at the tips of the branches and have numerous stamens. Native to the rainforests of northern Queensland.

Hairy psychotria, Psychotria loniceroides Sieber ex DC Shrub or small tree to 5 m high; young growth, leaves and inflorescence with white or rusty hairs.

Save Eprapah Creek Blue Tongues https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/work-of- A study of Blue-tongued lizards at suburban study sites showed gravid females are highly sedentary and less likely to encounter assembly/petitions/petition-details?id=2835 the dangers of suburbia. While the more ‘expendable’ males move about much more, but mostly in times and places that Awards involve minimal risk from humans and their domestic pets. https://cicadaawards.wordpress.com Lizards show strong site fidelity, spending up to 70% of their time in ‘safe’ locations; importantly, they avoid roads.

Refugial habitats, such as the riparian and rainforest along the Eprapah Creek Corridor, are areas of high biodiversity conservation value even though they may be small in area. Protecting these small hotspots of biodiversity in an otherwise dry, fire-prone landscape presents a number of challenges for local land managers.

Refugia – areas facilitate the persistence of species during large-scale, long-term climatic change – are increasingly important for conservation planning.

Riparian corridors often support higher biodiversity than non-riparian habitat and provide a valuable refuge for many species during droughts and fires the nature of this habitat makes it potential climate refugia. Climate refugia are those areas less likely to undergo significant climate induced changes and therefore valuable as they protect biodiversity. As climate change continues it’s expected that the koala distribution will contract East and South and it would be prudent to protect and rehabilitate the wetter habitats currently threatened by urbanisation.

Eprapah currently supports many species. Research undertaken in the Eprapah Creek corridor found the following.

o many invertebrates were recorded during the study, some of these not recorded previously, o surprisingly low number of introduced invertebrates were recorded, o a strong tendency of the invertebrate assemblages to vary according to vegetation type and canopy cover; and o a potential biodiversity ‘hotspot’, viz. Eprapah Creek Corridor, is flagged by the land snails.

Land snails are significant indicators of both environmental health and biodiversity hotspots. The study above found 18 species belonging to 9 families, 4 species of the environmentally sensitive family Charopidae were found at the Eprapah Creek Corridor. What the study has found, given the significant land snail fauna identified, is that the Eprapah Creek corridor is a biodiversity ‘hotspot’.

A hotspot is defined as habitat that contains the most important and significant habitats where threatened species of plants and of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science and conservation still survive.

If we look at ant species along the Eprapah Creek corridor the diversity is equally impressive with 142 ant species recorded across the surveyed areas.

If many species are to have a future in the Redlands and Bayside region it will be essential that refugia like the Eprapah Creek corridor are protected from development, inappropriate fire regimes and feral flora and fauna.

Published by Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, Wildlife Preservation Society of Qld committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it Bayside Branch is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead. P.O. Box 427 CAPALABA Q 4157 [email protected] November 2017